Blur's Damon Albarn's musical wonder.land to debut in July

Blur and Gorillaz mainman Damon Albarn has written a new musical based on Lewis Carroll's classic children's book Alice In Wonderland.

The show, which is titled wonder.land, will make its debut in July at Manchester's Palace Theatre as part of Manchester International Festival.

wonder.land reunites Albarn with director Rufus Norris, who he worked with on recent opera Dr Dee, it also features a book and lyrics from Byzantium and Tamara Drewe screenwriter Moira Buffini.

The show, which has been written to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Alice In Wonderland, will follow the character of 12-year-old Aly, who escapes from her daily life of torture at the hands of school bullies into an extraordinary virtual world called wonder.land. Online, Aly becomes Alice and meets many of the story's classic characters Dum and Dee, the Cheshire Cat and the Red Queen, although, by the end, they all seem strangely familiar...

Speaking about the play, Albarn said: "I’m fascinated by the idea of going down a rabbit hole, the otherworldliness and what that might mean. Alice aside, The Queen of Hearts, The Duchess, White Rabbit, Caterpillar were the most threatening characters of my childhood. I was genuinely very frightened of them as a kid, which is probably why I was interested when Alex Poots [Manchester International Festival Artistic Director] suggested a reworking.”

wonder.land will open in Manchester on July 2nd before moving to London's National Theatre in November.

Damon Albarn released his first solo album Everyday Robots last year. You can preview it on the right hand side of the page.